VCU worthy of preseason Top 25 spot

Quinn Casteel
Assistant Sports Editor
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Opinion/Analysis

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Following VCU’s loss to Indiana in the NCAA Tournament, I reeled off names of the royalty of the mid-major hierarchy — like Memphis and Gonzaga — for Darius Theus, and asked him if he thought VCU had established itself in that class.

The first words out of his mouth were, “Most definitely.”

“I think we’ve shown we belong in the NCAA Tournament,” he added. “I feel like we can play with anyone.”

Coaches and media around the country have voiced the same opinion as Theus, and for the first time in school history, VCU has a real chance to find itself in the preseason Top 25 poll. Jon Rothstein, a senior college basketball writer for CBS Sports, recently said on Twitter that he had both Drexel and VCU in the mix for preseason Top 25 spots, which would be a first for the CAA.

Coming off a conference championship and back-to-back NCAA Tournament runs, all while retaining the most sought-after coach in the nation and returning 12 of 13 players, VCU has the traits of a team poised for another big year. Shaka Smart also landed the school’s first-ever ESPN Top 100 recruit in Jordan Burgess, which makes the 2012-2013 Rams, on paper, the most intriguing VCU team in many years.

At the start of the 2011-2012 college basketball season, only three teams (Memphis, Gonzaga and Xavier) residing outside the power six conferences were believed worthy of AP Top 25 honors. By the end of the regular season, that number ballooned to six (Murray State, Wichita State, Creighton, San Diego State, UNLV and St. Mary’s).

Interestingly enough, none of those final six were among the three included at the beginning of the year—However, all three of those teams found themselves in the NCAA Tournament, two with single-digit seeds, showing the significance of the preseason poll.

High-major teams feel the significance of the poll as well—every team that reached New Orleans for the Final Four was high up in the preseason rankings, with Kansas being the lowest-ranked of the bunch coming in at No. 13, proving even further that the rankings hold meaning.

VCU found itself on a steady incline in terms of Top 25 votes throughout this season, eventually reaching 12 votes in the last AP Poll of the regular season and 13 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll. They had received at least two votes in the Coaches Poll since the Week 14 poll on Feb. 6, and by Week 15 were getting consistent votes in the AP Poll as well. Even if VCU doesn’t reach the Top 25 by the beginning of next season, the progress it has made over the past two seasons has been enough to assure it the opportunity to reach the plateau much faster than in recent years. Shaka Smart brought even more good publicity to the program after the season by turning down the head coaching job at Illinois, which undoubtedly caught the attention of voters around the country.

Xavier, Memphis and Gonzaga are the only mid-majors in the country to have garnered enough respect to receive preseason Top 25 credentials on a year-to-year basis, but VCU is on the verge of being on that short list as well and the benefits will run deep.

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